Releases

• Fixed: rebuilding binaries due to false-positive virus warnings

• Added: Maya 2025 release

Update: Windows Defender started flagging Windows .msi installer as a mallware. I did my best to scan it with multiple services, and nothing was found. Hopefully this was a false positive and nobody was affected. Regardless, until I figure out what’s causing this warning, MSI installer is removed - use ZIP package instead.

• Added: “lock influences” button now toggles all selected influences.
• Added: color ramp display mode for mask;
• Fixed: growing/shrinking component selection does not update while painting;
• Fixed: layer effect direction resets after file reload;
• Fixed: improved memory management for layer hierarchy deletion & undo iteraction.

• Fixed: vertex selection support while painting got broken in 2.1.2.

• Fixed: Added additional checks to prevent invalid weights appearing in layers after smoothing. Some hard-to-reproduce bugs are being reported, so while the cause is unclear, blindly trying some major suspects.
• Fixed: Slight improvements to color display visibility when painting.
• Fixed: With multiple layers selected, toggling layers enabled/disabled status should no longer reset layer selection.

• Added: Even if the “Prune Small Weights Before Writing to Skin Cluster” feature is not used, extremely small weights (below 0.000000001) will still be converted to 0 to avoid precision problems with the skinCluster node, which is particularly sensitive to the weight sum not being exactly 1.0.
• Added: Increase precision for the slider “Prune small weights before writing to skin cluster”.
• Fixed: Addressed another cause of skinCluster warnings “Warning: Some weights could not be set to the specified value”.
• Fixed: “Cycle display mode” viewport shortcut should be functional again.

• Due to added persistence features (locked influences), files created with this version of ngSkinTools cannot be opened with older versions of the plugin.
• Added: Locking influences per layer. This feature restricts weight modification for particular influences, and interacts with multiple features:
  • Single-target brushes like Replace will not modify the current influence if it is locked, or limit its maximum value per vertex (e.g., you can’t set the current influence to 1.0 if there’s some locked weight in a layer for another influence).
  • Multi-target brushes Smooth and Sharpen will only smooth weights between unlocked influences.
  • Setting weights to a layer via API will act like single-target brushes as well.
  • Redistributing weights to other influences (e.g., replacing vertex weight with a smaller value) will only happen between unlocked weights as well.
• Added: Wireframe color can now be configured for multiple influences/single influence display mode in paint/display settings.
• Added: improve error reporting if initializing layers fails.
• Added: “Heal” invalid weight values during export and file opening. If bugs, either past or future, corrupt layer weights with NaN values, then saving/loading/exporting will convert those values to zeros, thereby preventing permanent damage to the file.
• Fixed: using weights-per-vertex limiting features might result in invalid weight values (NaN), permanently breaking the layer.
• Fixed: “Influence selected” tooltip will only be shown if using on-screen influence selection. This also fixes a bug on macOS where the tooltip would steal keyboard focus from influences view.
• Fixed: Paint/display settings are now saved between ngSkinTools sessions.
• Fixed: Maya crashes during painting when undo deletes layer data node.
• Fixed: “Cut weights” and “Copy weights” would sometimes be greyed out when the operation is valid (layer and influence is selected).
• Fixed: Undo should no longer toggle current layer selection.

• Added: M1 build

• Added: macos 2024 build
• Fixed: respect vertex selection for manual/interactive mirror
• Fixed: intensity dialog (shortcut ‘I’) is broken in multiple ways;
• Added: allow UI spinner values to go beyond slider range, e.g. allow values greater than 5 for “limit max influences per vertex”, or values greater than 1.0 for “Scale” brush intensity;
• Changed: internal weight calculations switched to double precision, which should result in better smoothing precision but might cause slight performance penalty.

• Fixed: opening ngSkinTools UI fails with errors related to plugin not being loaded yet.

• Maya 2024 binaries for Windows and Linux added; macOS not ready yet, but did not want to delay the majority of users because of this;
• There are some weird Maya 2024 bugs when it comes to non-standard skinCluster setups, like using matrix nodes directly as skinCluster inputs; still researching what to do about them, but if possible, “hide” them behind a real joint, that should do the trick for now;
• Added: save brush configurations between UI sessions;
• Added: increasing “brush iterations” when smoothing will not require decreasing “intensity” to get the same amount of smoothing; this will keep intensity value more consistent across various “iterations” settings;
• Added: brush radius slider UI allows for bigger range when brush is in “screen” mode;
• Added: default for smoothing iterations is changed to 5;
• Added: smooth with edge selection. If “use selected edges” option is turned on, smoothing edge selection will smooth across connected edge loops only.
• Added: option to export/import compressed JSON;
• Added: slight startup improvement when opening a rig with lots of layers with mirror effect turned on;
• Fixed: changing vertex selection during painting (inverting selection, growing/shrinking via hotkeys) incorrectly displays selected components;
• Fixed: switching between layers having opacity below 1.0 will now be a bit faster;
• Fixed: license error message not cleared when license server becomes ready;
• Fixed: python exception printed when switching keyboard layouts between UI sessions.

• Fixed: copy/pasted weights don’t refresh the viewport
• Fixed: viewport does not update if evaluation mode is not parallel;
• Fixed: floating license checkout shows “seat limit reached” at startup (requires server update).
• Some optimizations to make influence selection a bit more responsive in UI;
• Influences list now allows selecting multiple items for paint operations. When multiple influences are selected, only those are displayed when display mode is set to “All influences, multiple colors”;
• Added: smoothing & sharpening between selected influences: if multiple influences are selected, only those influences will be affected;
• Multiple influences selection is now preserved for each layer while switching between layers;
• Changed: changing current influence selection is now not an undoable operation; this is done intentionally to not trash undo stack unnecessarily;
• Added: Mirror effect for layers now has its own mirror “Direction” option per layer;

• Fixed: crash when layer merging cannot determine target layer; API will now return “invalid argument” error, and UI will not allow to take the action if selection is invalid for merging;
• Fixed: mask color not displayed sometimes;
• Fixed: improved current influence tracking per layer;
• Fixed: “assign from closest joint” should now work properly with meshes that were transformed before skin bind;
• Fixed: plugin not loading on linux/maya2023 . Due to Mayapy bug, incorrect build result was not caught by build pipeline in the previous release.

• Fixed: Layers order incorrect after import.

A small rebuild to include Maya 2023 support.

• Fixed: linux-specific crashes during mirroring and weight transfer;
• Fixed: pymel dependency is no longer needed (can skip in 2022 setup, and a bit faster plugin startup);
• Fixed: plugin would sometimes fail to detect output mesh on a skin cluster and crash;
• Fixed: copy/pasting the license key does not tolerate whitespaces;
• Added: commands for configurable hotkeys:
  • Start painting (configure hotkey of your own preference in your main hotkey set)
  • Toggle original mesh (press T while painting)
  • Cycle weights display mode (press D while painting)
• Added: wireframe color changed for single influence display modes for better visibility;
• Added: “set weights” examples in API docs.

• Fixed: layer parenting discards the weights on the parent, and it’s not an undoable action.
• Fixed: toggling some UI options in “Set Weights” tab produced a python error;
• Added: group layers (those that have child layers) will now only show “mask” in influences, as this is the only option that is editable in a group layer;
• Added: various UI improvements for license error handling. Consider updating to latest license server as well.

• Added: painting/smoothing across gaps. “Paint” tab now has new brush projection mode, “Volume”. Using this mode, brush stamp will hit all the vertices close to the mouse. Smoothing in this mode will smooth across gaps and thin surfaces.
• Added: “Set weights”/Smooth has similar option to smooth across gaps. Turning on “Volume smoothing” will enable smoothing across gaps between shells and across the volume of thin surfaces;
• Fixed: weights being mirrored in import/export if using matching by name & default import patterns;
• Fixed: mirror settings in mirror tab should now correctly persist through sessions (some settings are global and some are mesh specific).

• Added: influence action: “select affected vertices”
• Added: copy/paste weights now respects component selection;
• Fixed: smooth - “only adjust existing vertex influences” does not work on mask;
• Fixed: ngSkinTools api no longer depends on UI libraries, which has prevented using it in batch mode;
• Fixed: setting license configuration via with environment variable was not working on Python 2;
• Fixed: changing component selection while painting does not update component selection display;
• Fixed: clarified error message regarding floating license keys usage (must use license server console instead of directly in Maya).

• Fixed: import/export: importing on a changed topology does not properly handle masks, leading to corrupted geometry or Maya crashes;
• Added: influence mapping pattern without wildcards is treated as “anywhere in a string”, e.g. _lf_ is the same as *_lf_*;
• Added: influences mirror matching: each influence now matches self if no other rules matched, avoiding the case where an influence could be left without any counterpart, leading to unwanted artifacts;
• Added: mirroring, matching by joint label: treat duplicate joint labels with side set to “center” as counterparts (e.g. joint1:"center","arm" and joint2:"center","arm" will match each other).

• Fixed: “Intensity” in “Set Weights” tab not behaving correctly when switching between modes;
• Fixed: DQ blend weights painting undo/redo;
• Fixed: layer weights will be normalized when initializing them from skinCluster when post-normalization is turned on;
• Fixed: “Show Original Mesh” display toggle does not properly unhide weights display;
• Fixed: strange wobble while painting DQ weights. Might be a bug in Maya’s MFnSkinCluster.setBlendWeights - switching to plain plug-based API seems to solve the issue;
• Fixed: import/export: skin cluster not updated after import;
• Fixed: flood shortcut (ctrl+F) fails with exception;
• Fixed: build fixes/optimizations for macOS;
• Fixed: mirror: influences matching by position not working.

Not a real release, this was an April’s fools joke. If you’re looking for actual releases, try the other ones!

• Headless mode for weights manipulation added; instead of error-prone and hard-to-reproduce painting in UI, you can now supply brush strokes via configuration files; plugging-in external brush event sources is also possible - check out docs for a simple cloud integration example;
• Along with production-proven “undo” and “redo”, added “won’t do”, “doo-doo” and “just do it!” operations;
• ngSkinTools UI is now a browser app, and you finally take advantage of features expected from a modern app, like social sharing buttons, cookie consent popups, accept-notifications confirmations, and more;
• Added AI reviewer: ngSkinTools will simulate the rest of your team giving you various advice on your technique and your rig, but can also sometimes give insight on your Maya settings, or the art of the model itself - anything to make you successful! Annual performance reviews not yet supported;
• Added full controller support; quickly switch between replace and smooth brush modes with a convenient up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A shortcut;
• Local coop and online coop painting modes are now ready for production;
• V2 documentation and lots of tutorial videos coming any day now;
• There are no more bugs left in the plugin.

• Fixed: Linux is missing Maya 2022 binary;
• Fixed: import/export: options “vertex transfer mode”, “keep existing layers” in transfer dialog not working;
• Fixed: setting sharpen to 1.1 produces invalid weights;
• Fixed: misconfigured macOS optimization settings.

• Fixed: (regression) brush resize in viewport crashes Maya;
• Added: slight performance upgrade - UI will not update while changing brush size;
• Fixed: import/export: layer mask not exported/imported;
• Fixed: import/export: vertex mapping mode setting is ignored;

• Added: Maya 2022 support

• Added: show vertex selection in paint mode;
• Added: “save as defaults” and “restore to defaults” in mirror influences mapping settings; default settings will be used next time you initialize skin layer weights;
• Added: “set” operation for “symmetry mesh” in Mirror tab/Vertex Mapping;
• Added: more intensity presets in “brush intensity” popup (“i” shortcut);
• Added: weights display option: “show masked weights”. If turned on, influence weights will not be displayed where mask is inactive;
• Fixed: importing weights to existing skin cluster does not update UI;
• Fixed: editing spinner values with keyboard interrupted by updated events.

• Fixed: File save/load crashes Maya on Sandybridge processors;

• Fixed: display color feedback while painting weights even if “show | plugin shapes” is disabled in the viewport;
• Added: smoothing option: ignore unselected mesh components;
• Added: copy/paste influences: copy single weight buffer between different influences (v1-style);
• Fixed: assign from selected joints: use selected joints when launching from influences UI;
• Fixed: layer “eye” icon not visible in Maya 2018.

• Fixed: stylus pressure is not updated during the stroke;
• Fixed: Maya crashes when smoothing an empty layer with “adjust existing influences only”;
• Fixed: (regression) UI is not opening on macOS;

• Fixed: crashes on older CPUs on Windows that do not support AVX2;
• Fixed: crashes on Linux when using installer.sh (build system packaged wrong files!);
• Added: adjustable brush size: don’t reset to zero when changing brush size in the viewport;
• Added: randomize influence colors in paint/display settings;
• Added: layers on/off “eye” button in layers tree UI;
• Fixed: ngSkinTools will not modify skinCluster’s normalizeWeights value anymore; for performance boost, you still can disable skinCluster’s normalization by setting normalizeWeights=None. In “normalizeWeights:interactive” skinCluster mode, Maya will no longer complain that “The weight total would have exceeded 1.0”. ngSkinTools will try extra hard to normalize each vertex to a perfect 1.0;
• Fixed: UI is not displayed correctly on high DPI displays when UI scaling is enabled in Maya.

• Added: convenience tool for adding influences to existing skin cluster. Select influences, target mesh and select “Tools | Add Influence”;
• Fixed: weights will now display properly when viewport option “use default material” is turned on;
• Added: (v1 feature) Limit max influences per vertex before writing to skin cluster;
• Added: (v1 feature) Prune small weights before writing to skin cluster.

• Added: copy/paste vertex weights between different selections (tab “tools” - “copy component weights/paste average component weights”);
• Added: tool “fill transparency” - for all empty vertices in a layer, assign weights from closest non-empty vertex;
• Added: “duplicate layer” operation;
• Added: “Merge layers” operation: combine selected layers into one.

• Fixed: linux: crashing on startup

• Added: influences mapping in mirror screen will now allow matching joints by DG connections; if symmetrical joints are linked between themselves with message connections, ngSkinTools will be able to leverage that information when mirroring weights;
• Added: symmetry mesh: an option to provide an alternative mesh for calculating vertex mapping for mirroring;
• Fixed: deleting visibility node can crash maya sometimes, e.g. switching to component mode (F8) while paint tool is active

• Added: “use all joints” option for “weights from closest joint” tool; few internal optimizations to speedup operation;
• Added: “weights from closest joint” option: “create new layer”
• Fixed: “weights from closest joint”: tool is only using joints as spots, but not as segments;
• Fixed: after “weights from closest joint” operation influences list is not refreshed;
• Fixed: “weights from closest joint”: “assign” button sometimes disabled;

• Fixed: “resume in workspace” error while opening UI. Please note that Maya might have persisted your current workspace in buggy state; if you still get errors, try resetting workspace in “windows | workspaces | reset … to defaults”.

• Added: skin data will be compressed for ngSkinTools data nodes, which should substantially reduce file size for scenes with lots of skinning layers;
• Added: paint mode intensity sliders are now exponential: “smooth”, “add” and “sharpen” sliders will now be more precise for lower values, and “scale” mode will allow for more precision when setting high values.

• Added: new “Set Weights” tab contains tools to apply weights to vertex/edge/polygon selection instead of painting.
• Added: new option for smooth tool - “only adjust existing vertex influences”; when this is turned on, smooth tool will prevent influences weights spreading across the surface
• Fixed: layer mirror effects correctly saved/loaded in files;
• Fixed: mask mirror effect was not correctly used by layer blending engine

• Fixed: minor bug in 2.0.12 blocks UI from opening;

• Fixed: occasional crashes when using mirror effect on layers;
• Additional stability fixes.

• Added: option to view used influences in influences list;
• Added: hide “DQ weights” channel in influences list if skin cluster skinning method is not set to “Weight Blended”;

• Fixed: broken linux builds

• Added: pressing “f” while painting focuses viewport camera to current paint target; for joints and other influences, current joint pivot is used as camera interest point; when current paint target is a mask, viewport centers around painted values;
• Fixed: influence mapping UI error if some influences are not joints;

• Fixed: undo paint crashing Maya;
• Fixed: incorrect brush behavior with multiple viewports open;
• Fixed: incorrect mesh display / VP2 transparency setting sensitive;
• Fixed: clearing selection while painting does not update display of current mesh;

• Fixed: joint sampling on screen now displays joint positions correctly after moving them while painting.

• Added: support for non-transform skinCluster influences, e.g. matrix nodes. Due to Maya bug, ngSkinTools will use slower API to update weights in skinCluster to avoid Maya crashes, if such influences are detected.

• Added: unify weights tool: for vertex selection, calculate average weights and assign for each vertex.
• Added: highlight current joint while painting.
• Fixed: ngSkinToolsUI close/open results in broken UI state

• Fix: user hotkeys are switched to ngSkinTools2 permanently

• Fixed/updated brush invert behavior. Holding CTRL is switches quickly how brush works:
  • Replace brush intensity switches to giving quick access to “replace with zero” brush;
  • “Smooth” mode switches to “Sharpen” and vice versa;
  • “Add” mode switches to “Scale” and vice versa;
• Added joint selection on screen by joint position. Hit “S” and then drag mouse around: if you’re near a joint, it will take priority over sampling a current joint from a mesh.

• macOS builds;
• Added: optionally hide unselected vertices (“Paint/Display settings/Hide unselected vertices”);
• Added: converting layers ngSkinTools v1 to v2. This should help make an easier transition for V1 users. The conversion is a one-way action, so make sure you have a copy of your scene if you intent to continue your work in V1;
• Added: “transfer layers” action, for copying layers between meshes;
• Fixed: “create new layer” is few times faster now, but this will only be noticeable on high density meshes;
• Fixed: Maya crashes if started in batch mode while ngSkinTools is installed (fix backported from V1);
• Fixed: selecting current influence on screen does not correctly update “selected influences” in UI.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed: when paint is started in “isolate selected” mode, paint surface is not shown;
• Fixed: paint tab / display settings: display values not consistent with viewport between closing/opening viewport;
• Fixed: after toggling to original mesh, animation is not updating for that mesh while paint tool is active;
• Fixed: painting appears to be stuck if painting with 1.0 brush over 1.0 painted area - only brushes that update weights refresh brush cursor.

Not fixed:

• Stylus pressure handling is not working properly: probably a Maya 2020 bug; filed a bug to Autodesk to investigate;

Minor life quality improvements:

• Paint tab, “Show original mesh” button will appear to be pressed down when original mesh is visible;

• Fixed: hard crash if mesh is deleted during paint operation (del or ctl+x)
• Fixed: select current joint on screen: incorrect joint location drawn when joints are moved
• Fixed: some links in Help menu do not point to correct location
• Added “Help | Check for Updates”, so you can be notified when update is available;

First public release of v2. See v2 launch status for more details.